Storyline
How the University came to sell the water, electric, telephone and sewer systems it ran for Chapel Hill and Carrboro: the 1970 rate fights and Carrboro’s water suit, the state study commission, the bids of 1974 and the choice of Southern Bell and Duke Power, and the water and sewer systems’ passing to OWASA.
In briefFrom 1970 Chapel Hill and Carrboro pressed to take over the water, electric and telephone systems the University owned. Carrboro lost a court fight over a 1970 water rate increase, and in 1972 a state study commission recommended that the University sell its utilities. Bids were opened in April 1974, and that fall the commission chose Southern Bell for the telephone system and Duke Power for electricity and water, over a nonprofit backed by the towns. The trustees asked that the water system go to a local authority, and OWASA, created in 1975, took over the water and sewer systems in 1977.
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In February 1970 Chapel Hill's aldermen and Carrboro's named committees to study buying the water, electric and telephone systems the University owned and ran for both towns, and that July Mayor Howard Lee pressed President William Friday and Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson for town control of the water system. On July 1 the University more than doubled Chapel Hill's water rates to help pay for expanding the supply, and Lee answered that the town meant to take over all the utilities. Carrboro's aldermen refused to pay the higher rate and held the difference in escrow, charging discrimination; in October the state sued the town for $8,555.25, and Carrboro answered that the University held a monopoly on the area's water. In November the trustees' executive committee backed Sitterson's call for a commission to decide whether the University should keep or sell the systems. The trustees raised electric rates in January 1971, and Carrboro's aldermen voted to seek an injunction before asking instead for a hearing. From July 1, 1971 the University's utilities came under the State Utilities Commission's rules except for rates, and that November Governor Robert W. Scott named the Utilities Study Commission the legislature had authorized.
In January 1972 a Superior Court judge ruled for the University in the Carrboro water suit, and the Court of Appeals upheld him that summer; Carrboro, which had paid the higher rate only from October 1972, more than doubled its own water rates in January 1973 to pay about $133,000 in back charges. On July 29, 1972 the study commission, with Lee, Carrboro Mayor Robert Wells and county board chairman Harvey Bennett among its members, recommended that the University give up its utilities. The trustees approved in August, and on September 8 the Board of Governors agreed in principle to sell the electric, water, sewer and telephone systems; the next day the trustees raised electric rates 7.5 percent. In October the county commissioners asked to buy the water and electric systems, and in November the commission voted to negotiate a sale, requiring any buyer to pay at the time of sale. That year Chapel Hill also approved treating Carrboro's sewage at its Morgan Creek plant, and Carrboro called a vote on $1.35 million in water and sewer bonds to tie its sewers into Chapel Hill's.
Early in 1973 Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the county agreed to study buying the utilities together and running them as a non-profit, the trustees took up an invitation to propose a University-owned utility corporation, and on February 19 the Chapel Hill aldermen set up the nonprofit Consumer's Utility Corporation to bid. In September county planners meeting on growth around University Lake heard Cane Creek named as the best supplement to the lake, and the commission approved prospectuses that let bids cover all or part of the systems and required a water buyer to commit to enlarging the supply. Carrboro began sending its sewage to the University's Bolin Creek plant in October, and by late November the University had put its telephone, off-campus electric, water and sewer systems up for bids.
At Southern Bell's request the bid deadline was put off from March 1 to April 16, 1974. That spring Orange County Citizens for Alternative Power organized against Duke Power's buying the electric system, and Chapel Hill capped new flows into its sewage plant and agreed to bid for the University's half of the treatment system. When the bids were opened in Gerrard Hall on April 16, Central Telephone and Utilities was high for the telephone system and Duke Power for the electric system, Chapel Hill made the only bid for the sewer system, $157,000, and the Consumers Utility Corp. offered about $32 million for the telephone, water and electric systems together. On September 27 the commission voted 9 to 5, Lee and Wells voting no, to recommend selling the telephone system to Southern Bell and the electric and water systems to Duke Power, with the University keeping the sewer system Chapel Hill had bid on. Commission member Tom Eller filed a minority report charging that University interests had dominated the study, Central Telephone threatened to withdraw its bid, and on October 11 the UNC trustees approved the sale 13 to 1 but asked that Duke Power build the Cane Creek reservoir and then sell the water system to a water and sewer authority of the towns and possibly the county. In November Chapel Hill chose to enlarge its Mason Farm sewage plant rather than join Durham's, and the three governments told the state they wanted to buy the University's water and sewer systems. Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro created the Orange Water and Sewer Authority in June 1975, the state approved conveying the University's water and wastewater systems to it on August 9, 1976, and OWASA took over the three systems on February 16, 1977.
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Louis Round Wilson's 40-page review of the University of North Carolina library, subtitled on the cover a review of its past and a look at its future. Wilson had directed the library for three decades before leaving for Chicago, and the university's main library carries his name. Published by the University of North Carolina Library in Chapel Hill in 1960, with illustrations.
Judith M. Panitch's illustrated account of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library between 1992 and 2004, published by the library in 2004. It is a history of the academic library, and the notes point out its references to the Aldo P. Magi collection of Thomas Wolfe material. 50 pages with color illustrations in an oblong format.
Edward G. Holley's twelfth Hanes Lecture, given in Wilson Library on 11 April 1995, on how the library, philanthropy and publishing helped the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill become a major American university. Printed by the Hanes Foundation, 28 pages.
Exhibition booklet from the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published in 1996, recording the benefactors whose gifts built the collection and the items they gave. The cover reads Selections from the Rare Book Collection, and Henry Pearson, 1914 to 2006, is among the people it covers. 32 pages with illustrations.
Howard N. Lee (born 1934) tells his own story, from a farm childhood in Lithonia, Georgia, through college, army service in Korea at Camp Casey and the move from Savannah that planted him in Chapel Hill, to his election as mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969 and his later run for Congress and years in the state legislature. Published by Cotton Patch Press of Chapel Hill in 2008, 199 pages with plates.
Edwin Caldwell, Jr. reviews a life in Chapel Hill politics in a three-hour Southern Oral History Program interview recorded March 2, 2001, by Oliver White. A skilled organizer, Caldwell worked in the campaign that made Howard Lee the town's first Black mayor in 1969, ran for office more than once without winning, and became a local political power. The conversation also covers race relations, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board and the Church of Reconciliation. Published online in 2006 in Documenting the American South.
Interview recorded June 21, 2000 with Rebecca Clark (1915-2009), a Black Chapel Hill resident, for the Southern Oral History Program at UNC. Clark, educated in Chapel Hill's segregated schools, describes working life under segregation and the economic discrimination she met in it. Topics also include Lincoln High School, school integration, and Howard Lee, elected mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969. Interview K-0536 in collection #4007.
Howard N. Lee's account of his own career, published in 2021 by the North Caroliniana Society with the society award given to him that year, together with tributes from Angela Lee, Valerie Foushee and others. Lee became mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969, the town's first Black mayor.
Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor of UNC-Chapel Hill stands before the sundial at Morehead Planetarium in June 1973, on a color slide by Hugh Morton.
Biography of William C. Friday, president of the University of North Carolina system, by historian William A. Link, published by UNC Press in 1995 with the subtitle power, purpose, and American higher education. It covers Friday's career and the history of the university at Chapel Hill and statewide. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.
Georgia Carroll Kyser's brief biographical tribute to William Clyde Friday and his wife Ida Howell Friday, published by the North Caroliniana Society in 1984. It runs 25 pages with eight pages of plates and illustrations. Friday led the consolidated state university from Chapel Hill, where the couple made their home.
Robert W. Scott (1929-2009), North Carolina's governor between 1969 and 1973 and son of Governor Kerr Scott, interviewed by William Link on April 4, 1990 for the Southern Oral History Program. Scott discusses his student years at North Carolina State College in the early 1950s and his dealings with university president William Friday, including the food workers' strike at Chapel Hill, college integration, and the consolidation of the state's universities into the UNC System during his term. One hour thirty-seven minutes. Electronic edition 2007.
William C. Friday, UNC system president from 1957 until 1986, was interviewed by Cindy Cheatham in December 1990 about Anne Queen (1911-2005). Queen came to the campus YWCA as associate director in 1956 and led the merged YMCA-YWCA from 1964 to 1975. Friday recalls working with her through the years of student political activity in Chapel Hill and reflects on the place of the Y in university life. About forty minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2007, through Documenting the American South.
Raised in Orange County's Cane Creek community, Nancy Holt became one of its organizers when the Orange Water and Sewer Authority planned a reservoir there. Interviewed alongside Brian Holt by Frances E. Webb in October 1985, she describes farm life, the school and church that held the community together, how scattered neighbors cooperated, and the environmental and social costs residents expected from the reservoir. Runs about two and a half hours; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2007, through Documenting the American South.
Sam Crawford (born 1949) helped found Cane Creek Conservation Authority, the residents' group formed in 1975 to fight plans by OWASA, the Chapel Hill area's water utility, for a reservoir on Cane Creek in rural Orange County. In this October 1985 interview with Judith Wheeler, joined by Patty Crawford, he recounts how residents learned of the plan and organized, and the environmental and water-supply arguments on each side. A little over two hours; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2007, through Documenting the American South.
Elizabeth Brooks, a cafeteria worker at UNC and a leader of the 1969 food workers' strike, speaks in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded October 2, 1974, by Beverly Jones. Born in Caswell County, Brooks had made her home in Hillsborough since 1949 and raised nine children before her first paid job, at the university. She describes the strike, the Black Student Movement's support for the workers, and the response of Governor Robert W. Scott. Published online in 2006 in Documenting the American South.
Dairy farmer Bobby Kirk, who led the conservation authority formed at Cane Creek, describes the fight against the Cane Creek Reservoir, proposed for southwestern Orange County. In this Southern Oral History Program interview, recorded October 28, 1985, by K. Campbell, Kirk explains why he and neighboring farmers opposed the project, how residents first organized against it, and his view that the reservoir was badly planned. Just over an hour long. Published online in 2005 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
The case for the Cane Creek Reservoir, made by Daniel A. Okun, professor of environmental engineering at UNC, in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded October 22, 1985, by Laura Drey. Okun sets out why a new reservoir was needed in Orange County and answers the Cane Creek farmers' objections on water quality and watershed management. It pairs with interviews of opponents Bobby Kirk and Edward S. Johnson. Published online in 2004 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
Edward S. Johnson (1933-2022) recounts the organized effort to stop OWASA, the Orange County water utility, from damming Cane Creek for a reservoir, in a 40-minute Southern Oral History Program interview recorded October 28, 1985, by Patricia E. Sloan. Johnson describes how neighbors came together into a coherent opposition, the questions of eminent domain raised by the taking of farmland, and the environmental review of the project. Published online in 2004 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
Joseph A. Herzenberg (1941-2007), later a Chapel Hill Town Council member, was interviewed by Mary Dexter in November 1985 about the Cane Creek reservoir fight. OWASA, the water and sewer utility serving Chapel Hill, proposed damming Cane Creek in rural Orange County, and residents there organized against it. Herzenberg supports the reservoir and discusses the local politics and water-supply questions behind the dispute. About an hour and a half; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2004, through Documenting the American South.
A pocket guide to University Lake issued by the Orange Water and Sewer Authority in Carrboro, eleven unnumbered pages with illustrations and a map, 18 centimeters. Dated 1997, though one page carries the notation 7/84. The guide describes the lake as a water source for Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Orange County.
Vanessa Speight's master's report in environmental engineering, submitted to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1994 and approved by Donald T. Lauria, Donald E. Francisco and Philip C. Singer. It applies 0,1 mixed integer programming to the operation of a multiple reservoir system, with the Orange Water and Sewer Authority's reservoirs in Orange County as the case, on water supply and theoretical models.
The Orange Water and Sewer Authority's formal comments on the state Division of Environmental Management's environmental impact statement for the Cane Creek reservoir, the water supply built in western Orange County. Transmitted under a letter dated June 1, 1982, the volume covers reservoirs, water supply and water quality management in the county, with maps. Published by OWASA in Carrboro, one volume in various pagings.
A draft environmental impact statement from 1982 on the Cane Creek Reservoir, the water-supply impoundment proposed for Cane Creek in southwestern Orange County near the Alamance line. Prepared by the Division of Environmental Management of the state Department of Natural Resources and Community Development, it runs 144 pages in various pagings with illustrations, maps, bibliographies and an index. Topics include reservoirs, water supply and environmental impact analysis for Orange County.
Report and recommendations of the Carrboro Water Quality Task Force, presented in November 1982. Topics include water quality, water quality management and water supply in Carrboro, so the document belongs with the town's planning record from the early 1980s. One volume of various pagings with maps, issued by the task force itself.
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